He repeats the three words, almost disbelieving the first time he said them.

“One year ago,” Jonathon Jennings says with emphasis.

One year ago, Jennings was a 22-year-old unknown trying to start a professional football career so he could quit his warehouse job.

He was battling someone named Greg McGhee at training camp in Kamloops to be the B.C. Lions’ third quarterback.

Former Canadian Football League Most Outstanding Player Travis Lulay, returning from career-threatening shoulder injuries, was the Lions’ starter and veteran National Football League refugee John Beck the backup.

One year ago, a few hundred dollars a week on the Lions’ practice roster would have seemed like a lottery win for Jennings, the six-foot quarterback from Columbus, Ohio and Saginaw Valley State who went unnoticed at a Saskatchewan Roughriders free-agent camp and unsigned after workouts for the Kansas City Chiefs, Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers.

Then he came to the Lions.

And one year later, today, Jonathon Jennings is not only the opening-day starter against the Calgary Stampeders at B.C. Place, but a player so exciting and compelling that the football team could be rebranded by him.

He turns 24 next month.

“It’s crazy,” Jennings says. “It has happened fast. I went from just hoping I was going to make the team a year ago – just one year ago – to being the guy that everyone looks to to be the starter for the year.

“I’m 23 years old. Khari Jones (Lions offensive co-ordinator) talked about it. … he started in his late 20s. He was in the CFL for five or six seasons before he started. To get this opportunity is amazing. All I want to do is take advantage of it and go out to prove to everyone that I can do this as a young guy. It has really happened fast, but it’s exciting.”

After mid-season injuries to Lulay and Beck, Jennings got the chance to start for the Lions as a rookie. He was a revelation, a one-man antidote for a dull, plodding offence that lacked hope and the big play.

In his first four games, Jennings passed for 10 touchdowns and 1,246 yards. Only three rookie quarterbacks in CFL history were more productive in their first four starts. Making plays with his arm and feet, Jennings went 3-3 as a starter on a poor team and amassed 2,004 yards and 15 touchdowns. In six games.

He did throw 10 interceptions, too, but was impressive with what seemed like his quick grasp of the complex Canadian game.

With Lulay finally healthy and supporting Jennings as the backup, the Lions have their best quarterback tandem since Dave Dickenson and Casey Printers were here more than a decade ago. But there’s a titanic difference in harmony. Jennings and Lulay will neither tear the football nor the locker-room in two.

“It is different,” Lulay says of the pressure Jennings faces as a starter.

“And you can feel that it’s different when you’re in that position. I’m just speaking from my own past experience. That’s human nature. That (pressure) is part of the deal. To be frank, I kind of view it as part of my role to take away some of that pressure and just let Jon do what he does best and just go play football.

“Now there’s some film out on you. Teams know what to expect. It’s not: ‘Who’s this guy?’ That can be a challenge. But Jon’s got some good people around him.”

New people around him, too.

After the bleak 7-11 season under Jeff Tedford, Lions’ general manager Wally Buono not only reclaimed the head coach’s office but helped himself by signing eight CFL free agents, unprecedented for Buono.

Buono redid Jennings’ contract in May. The quarterback’s rookie salary of $55,000 has been tripled, and Jennings’ pay escalates to $300,000 two seasons from now. He may be a bargain.

One year ago …

“Last year, going from just trying to make the team and then getting the chance to play, I just added what I could to the excitement of our game and our team,” Jennings says. “I just tried to do some good things. But this year, it’s a whole different story. Everyone expects me to be great. They’re relying on me to go out there to make plays for this team and help our chances of winning.

“It’s tough. You can control what you can control. Just be decisive. That’s been a big thing from last year – just making sure I’m decisive in what I’m doing. Even if it’s wrong sometimes, just be decisive and make a play.”

Jennings says his ascension to the starting job in Vancouver is identical to what occurred at Saginaw Valley, where injuries allowed him to play as a true freshman. He never relinquished the starting job at college.

“I always laugh about it because it just seems it was destined to be,” he says. “People will be ready (this season). But I think they were last year as well. I don’t think people played us last year and went, ‘He’s a rookie, we’ll just let it slide.’ I think they knew I could run around a little bit and make plays with my feet and my arm. So they’re going to be ready for it. But we’re ready for them as well.”

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